


Wrong Side of Paradise

by Angelikah



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: And yet, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Deathly Hallows, Department of Mysteries, F/M, Hercules-Style Rescue, Prophecies, Slow burn adjacent, Smut, Soulmates, Temporary Character Death, Time Turner Accident, Twisted Canon, here we are, that no one wanted or asked for, the weird viking vampire harry potter time travel mashup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-09 09:01:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16446827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelikah/pseuds/Angelikah
Summary: Ominous prophecies involving soulmates, time travel, and no running water had not been something Caroline was expecting when she took the internship at the Department of Mysteries. She was pretty sure there was a pun somewhere in there about this whole mess being fate, but if anyone made it she might kill them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bigbadw0lf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigbadw0lf/gifts).



> Is this high art? Absolutely not, but I hope it’s enough fun that you like it!!! Thank you to the usual suspects for listening to me whine, betaing, and helping me idea-bounce, especially Luiza, Morgan, Kelly, Colleen, Ravyn, Melissa, and Laura. You all are rockstars.

The dumb glass ball was totally taunting her.

Interns getting the worst work was a given, but the prophecy hall was too delicate for magic use, and apparently they’d been procrastinating on re-creating the paper records of the prophecies since they’d been destroyed a decade ago by Harry Potter’s duel with the Death Eaters. The ‘detail-oriented with superb organizational skills’ bullet point on her resume had been totally accurate, but it meant she was assigned to catalogue every single orb’s nameplate and transcribe the prophecies within them. They were also originally organized by the last name of the seer when she was pretty sure it would make more sense to organize them by date. When she’s mentioned that to her supervisor, he’d agreed, resulting in her getting even more on her to-do list.

She’d decided to rearrange them in the new order as she transcribed them, and it was incredibly time consuming.

She wasn’t entirely sure how they’d managed to get prophecies dating all the way back to Ancient Greece—magic, probably, she thought wryly in a voice that sounded a lot like Bonnie—but she’d only just gotten to prophecies from the second century, and just staring down the hall to the number of shelves she still had to do was exhausting.

She stared at the prophecy in front of her, her eyes darting down to the nameplate beneath it.

D. 1005  
C. Forbes, N.

She swallowed, looking around the room to make sure she was alone. It was a little silly, she knew. Transcribing the prophecies was her job, after all.

It objectively made no sense that she was the C. Forbes the nameplate referred to. She was born almost a thousand years after it was made. Somehow though, when she first saw the orb, she’d felt inexplicably drawn to it, even before she saw the names below it. There was also the tiny fact that last names generally started popping up in the 13th century, and only became consistent by the 15th. “C. Forbes” had the only last name in that section.

The prophecy was meant for her. She could feel it.

She reached out and tentatively rested her hand on the glass ball, waiting for the seer to appear above the orb. The silver whisps of air began to climb up from between her fingers, tangling together to form a woman in a simple dress, whose eyes were wide and blank, her body stiff.

_“From the tragedy of a full moon bright, a ritual comes to fix what was already whole. The bastard wolf’s mate ripped away before her time, their souls joined in his death, their love immortal.”_

She dutifully recorded the words with shaking fingers, her head spinning. What did she have to do with a prophecy made a thousand years ago? Souls joined in death? An unnecessary magical fix-it ritual? What did that even mean?

To be fair, lots of the prophecies, especially older ones, often had connotations that were clearly lost in translation or didn’t have equivalent words in English. Maybe that was the problem.

“Caroline?”

She flinched in surprise and whirled around to face her supervisor, who was looking a bit concerned at her jumpiness. “Hi, Shane.”

“You okay?”

She nodded quickly, trying to gather herself back to a stance and demeanor that didn’t scream ‘I just had the biggest shock of my life’. “Yeah. What’s up?”

“I need you to go to the Auror department and give them this,” Shane said, handing her a piece of parchment. “Just some research from the memory room.”

“Okay.”

“And if you could get some coffee too, that would be great. Mer and I have been here since last night.”

“Yeah, sure,” Caroline said distractedly, taking the sickles Shane pressed into her hand and turning to leave, still lost in thought.

She took the shortcut through the time room, but made the mistake of not looking where she was going, tripping on a glass vial and stumbling, her sickles making loud pinging noises as they fell on the marble floor, the paper falling out of her hand as her arms windmilled to keep her balance, but she couldn’t seem to find it.

She screamed as she fell, twisting when she heard the door open and vaguely heard someone shout her name, but the world spun around her before she could see a face.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Everything smelled different.

It felt like it had been years since she’d smelled fresh pine, the scent of it almost foreign. Her cramped apartment was in the middle of the city, and she’d only been back to the United States once or twice since she’d moved to the U.K., once for Bonnie’s Healer School graduation and once for the most awkward family Christmas Caroline ever endured.

She frowned as soon she opened her eyes, blinking to clear her blurry vision as she took in her surroundings, realizing immediately that she was lying behind something that could only be described as a poorly-constructed hut. Her head was pounding, her mouth dry from thirst.

Where the hell was she?

She reached down to the pocket of her robes, sighing in relief when she found her wand. The familiar feeling of an egg cracking on the top of her head made her shiver as she cast the disillusionment charm, hoping that she could remain undetected until she figured out where she was and how she’d gotten there.

She’d been organizing the prophecy room and had found the prophecy that was meant for her. The prediction had been ominous and terrifying, and she’d been distracted. She remembered rushing to her office, talking to her boss, and the last thing she remembered was tripping in the time roo—

Oh, shit.

No. No, absolutely fucking not. She hadn’t time traveled. That wasn’t a  _ thing. _ She’d done work in the time room before, and all they used it for was research on possible cures to save the lives of premature babies and fast-moving cancers. Well, and she was pretty sure one of her supervisors stayed after hours to work on a new age-rewinding moisturizer, but she was sworn to secrecy about that.

Unless she’d managed to crash into the broken hourglass from when one of the Death Eaters broke it in the 1996 Battle at the start of the second rise… The Ministry kept lowering taxes and cutting their research budget, so they hadn’t been able to throw together the required money to repair it. No one had touched it in years because they weren’t sure what had been damaged.

Ugh. Just her luck.

She swallowed, running a hand through her hair and trying to take deep, calming breaths. The first thing she needed was a plan, and she wouldn’t be able to do that if she was having a panic attack.

If she’d actually time traveled, she’d have to find out where and when she was. Once that was done, finding a way to assimilate was the first order of business, since she was pretty sure that people wouldn’t buy ‘time travel’ as an explanation for a new person randomly popping up. Hopefully they weren’t the kind of muggles who burned witches at the stake, or whatever. She cursed herself for not bothering to learn the flame-freezing charm.

Depending on when she’d ended up, there might be another witch or wizard who could help her figure out a way back. If she was close enough to her time there might even be a ministry or government she could contact. She didn’t want to risk apparating since she had no idea where the building would be, but maybe she could transfigure a tree into a scooter or something? Or find a broom?

She was getting ahead of herself.

She caught movement in her peripheral vision and drew her wand out of habit, spinning to look to see what had caught her eye. A dark-haired man was walking towards her, his mouth stretched in a yawn. He was probably only a little bit older than her, maybe nineteen or twenty, and he had excellent forearms emphasized by the cut of his very loose, very not modern shirt. Tunic, possibly?

Ugh, she’d have to ditch the robe and her new jeans then. Sucky, because they were a nice brand, but she’d live. Maybe she could find some kind of bag to expand and keep them? They had bags in the olden days, right?

She debated talking to the man but decided it would be best to eavesdrop a bit before revealing herself to get as much background information as possible. It was entirely possible that they didn’t speak English, let alone modern English, which would make her life infinitely harder.

Again though, getting ahead of herself.

She wandered around the village for a bit, making note of where everything was and trying not to get too lost. In the next few hours she learned that they absolutely did not speak any kind of language she was familiar with. It was easily fixed with the same spell she used to translate prophecies, but the spell would have to be refreshed often, especially to allow her to speak it.

Once she could understand the language, she also heard whispers of two village witches, who all the residents seemed to respect and fear in equal measure. One of the witches had children, and some of them were at “the magic castle in the old world” which she was pretty sure meant Hogwarts. Since she’d read a few chapters of Hogwarts a History when she was bored, she knew that it had been founded in 990.

Was it possible she’d ended up around the time that the prophecy about her had been given? It seemed entirely likely given the setting. Her first course of business was probably to find N, then. Maybe they were one of the witches, or could at least help her.

She hoped so.

* * *

 

New people didn’t come to their village often, so Klaus was unsurprised at the gossip surrounding a girl who had arrived unaccompanied and unannounced. What was surprising was that no one seemed to question her background or origins. All that mattered was that she’d been taken in by Brenna and Einar, a couple who lived on the outskirts of the village and managed the fields. It was odd, to say the least.

He’d caught a glimpse of her once or twice, had admired her from afar, but his mother had always warned him that mysterious strangers rarely held anything but trouble, her tone bitter as though speaking from personal experience. He couldn’t help but be drawn to her, however, and he gave into the temptation to investigate her presence more thoroughly when he saw her dart into the forest alone with buckets that should have been too heavy for her small form when filled with water.

He followed her at a distance, planning to act like he’d coincidentally been hunting nearby and offer her some help. When he arrived at the creek, however, he stopped in his tracks. She was in just an underslip waving her wand––her  _ wand _ ––in the air to make the buckets fill themselves as shiny foam worked its way through her dress before it dunked itself in the river.

The girl was a witch.

He backed away before she could see him, his mind racing. To his knowledge Brenna and Einar had no connection to magic of any kind, though her magic explained why they’d been so willing to take her in. She’d most likely done some sort of enchantment. 

The question was why was she here of all places. As far as he knew there was no spell to allow someone to speak another language. That meant she’d most likely come from the north as well. She was clearly of school age and would likely be attending Durmstrang unless she wasn’t of magical heritage, an option of slim chance considering that she had a wand.

Quite the mystery. 

Perhaps she was running from something or was seeking an artifact of some sort. According to legend, their village had originally been built by descendents of Fenrir, explaining why the men and women under the curse of the moon could turn humans into wolves with a bite. It was all nonsense, honestly. Still, they got the occasional traveler who believed in the legend and wanted to search for rare objects or historical artifacts, though none had ever stayed as long as the girl had, generally having been scared away by the full moon nights.

Either way, she was clearly powerful and wanted to keep her magic a secret, and if he approached her correctly and got her to trust him, she might be willing to help him learn, perhaps even find him a wand. After his first burst of accidental magic had nearly burned the house down at the age of five, his mother had tried to teach him how to control it. Mikael forbid they continue once Klaous could control himself, and had made it clear that they weren’t ‘going to any extra trouble’ to send Klaus to Durmstrang with his siblings.

He’d never understood why his father hated him so much, but he’d been lying in wait for the first opportunity to take revenge on his father for the life he’d stolen from him. Should he convince the girl to help him, he hoped that he’d have a chance to test every single spell he’d dreamed of using. He wanted to make Mikael  _ scream _ , to  _ beg  _ for mercy.

He wanted his father to know that Klaus held his life in his hands, and he wanted to see the look in his father’s eyes when he destroyed it.

The only way to do that was to coax the girl into helping him. Perhaps he could ingratiate himself with her by assisting her in her chores. Surely she wouldn’t turn him down if he offered his help. Women did like being tended to and doted on, so it shouldn’t be any trouble to get on her good side.

He took a shortcut off the path that would get him to the forest’s edge before she did and waited patiently for her to come out. When she finally emerged, her dress much less dirty than when she’d gone in, she was carrying the buckets easily.

“Hello love,” Klaus said, giving her a dimpled smile that usually worked wonders on women. “Fancy some help?”

“No, thanks,” she said tersely, quickly walking past him, and he frowned in confusion. Why hadn’t she accepted his assistance? Surely the water must be heavy.

“It’d be no trouble,” he said, catching up to her, and she shot him an exasperated look.

“I’m fine, really.”

It dawned on him as she sped up again that she must have lightened the buckets using magic, an idea that only excited him more. “All right, love. At least let me accompany you back to your home.”

She seemed torn for a second before nodding, walking off without a word. He fell into step beside her, trying not to smile at how she was clearly getting more annoyed by the second, forced to slow her pace so that it looked like she was having trouble carrying everything.

Her cheeks did flush quite beautifully, her skin glowing in the light of the early morning sun, and he found himself admiring the dust of freckles along her nose and cheeks, and wondering what her skin would feel like under his fingers. Would it be hot to the touch? 

Her eyes flashed when she noticed him staring, and she cleared her throat loudly. He couldn’t fight down a smile as he glanced down at the ground to avoid her ire. He most likely shouldn’t find her behaviour so enchanting, but there was something about that fire that he liked.

He could feel her magic sparking by her skin from their proximity, could tell that she was  _ powerful _ , perhaps as much as he was. The feel of it was addictive. He wanted to touch her, to feel the rush of her magic under his fingertips. He tried to make it look accidental when he brushed her hand with his knuckles when they arrived at Brenna and Einar’s home, and she gasped softly, her eyes snapping up to look at him.

So she’d felt it too.

“I...thank you for escorting me,” she stammered, turning to walk away, her hips swinging enticingly.

It crossed his mind as he wandered off that her magic and secrets might not be the only thing he wanted from her, that this inexplicable draw to her might be something more, but he shoved it aside as quickly as it came.

No, getting attached to her wasn’t an option. If it was easier to gain her trust by luring her to his bed, that wouldn’t be a hardship, but he had no intention of exploring this instant connection. Gaining her trust, convincing her to help him, and then leaving her behind with her wand in his hand seemed like the safest route. With magic he could go anywhere in the world. Why stay tied to the whims of a pretty young girl when there were so many more on the infinite number of adventures he could take?

Affection was a weakness, after all, and he was anything but weak.

* * *

 

Caroline nearly groaned when she saw Bucket Guy walk past her with an armful of firewood, his tunic discarded over his shoulder, his tattoos stark in the morning light. He grabbed the axe, and she had to do her best to ignore his really nice forearms.

Like,  _ really  _ nice.

Bucket Guy seemed to turn up wherever she went, always watching her with attentive too-focused eyes and occasionally attempting to make small talk, a smirk twisting his lips whenever she shut him down. He was as persistent as she was determined to ignore him, and she wasn’t sure who was winning their battle of wills at the moment.

When she went out in the morning to feed the cows, he lingered by the barn to chop firewood, his muscles flexing distractingly as he brought down the axe. He coincidentally arrived to pull weeds from the garden whenever she watered the plants. When she walked to the river to get water, he was there, usually bathing. He always acted so surprised too, like he hadn’t expected her to come to the river at the same time she did every morning. She doubted he had washed himself that often before she came. Wasn’t that how people got the plague in Medieval times? Because they didn’t fucking bathe?

Pseudo-accidental stripping was such a teenage boy thing to do, and it was transparent, and it was  _ annoying _ .

Everything about him was annoying, honestly. He had an annoying smirk and an even more annoying voice, and his attractive face was  _ annoyingly  _ familiar, but she couldn’t recall from where. He almost never spoke to her other than to apologize insincerely for having a bath while she did her chores, but he looked at her, occasionally with heat in his eyes but usually with plain calculation, as though he was trying to figure her out just by observing her while she minded her own business.

So. Annoying.

She finally cracked after two weeks of him being a creeper, whirling around at him in the middle of watering the herbs to glare at him as he chopped firewood, trying not to let her eyes linger on the sweat on his tanned forearms and the tattoos stark against his skin. “What are you doing?”

“I should think it would be obvious,” he drawled, setting down the axe and turning to face her, running a hand through his hair, the long fingers tangling in his curls drawing her eyes until he cleared his throat, making her flush.

“Not like, now. I mean what are you doing in general? Why are you always hanging around me like some kind of stalker?”

“It’s a small village and we have similar chores,” he said with a shrug and a raised eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes!” she said irritably, taking a bit of satisfaction at how surprised he looked that she’d admitted it. “It’s a problem. You stare at me all the time and it’s...unnerving.”

“Don’t pretend you aren’t reciprocating, sweetheart. I see the way you glance at me out of the corner of your eye.”

“I—don’t call me that,” Caroline spluttered, caught off-guard, feeling her cheeks redden even more. She thought she’d been subtle. “And I do not. You just stare at me so I glare back at you hoping you’ll stop because it’s creepy.”

He looked almost amused at her indignance, leaning against the side of the barn as he looked at her with his head cocked slightly to the side. “I must admit that I’m curious about you, Caroline.”

That made her guard immediately go up. Though she was sure there were other villagers who had suspected something was off with her, no one had been nosey enough to say it out loud. He seemed perceptive, and something about him felt almost dangerous, though somehow not in a way that made her scared.

“Okay,” she finally said, deciding not to give an inch. “And?”

“You turned up out of nowhere and managed to ingratiate yourself with most of the village immediately, though you don’t seem to have made any real connections. People aren’t questioning your presence. You’re clearly a witch, but you use a stick for your magic without reagents. You don’t hold your tongue the way others might think you ought to, though I must admit I find it charming.”

“You know about my magic?” she squeaked, her heart beating faster. She thought she’d been so subtle.

“I saw you at the river the first day we spoke,” he said with a smug grin that she kind of wanted to punch off of his face. “Don’t worry, love. I’ve not told anyone and I don’t plan to. Your secret is safe with me. I must admit that all of it adds up to quite the mystery, however.” 

She raised her eyebrows at him when he trailed off, her entire body tensing. “Is that a threat?” she asked sharply. 

“Not at all, love. I’m just curious.”

“Well, maybe you should mind your own business.”

His lips twitched as he looked her up and down, the slow drag making her skin prickle in a way that wasn’t at all unpleasant.

“Perhaps I’ve approached this incorrectly,” he murmured. “Let’s start over, shall we?”

“Or we could not,” Caroline said irritably. “I think I know enough about you to not want to be friends.”

“I do understand that I seem to have made a bad first impression. However, I do have other personality traits that you might find less repellant,” he said easily, pushing off the barn wall and taking a few steps towards her. “Get to know me, Caroline. I dare you.”

Caroline snorted, the hand that wasn’t holding the watering can clenching into a fist. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, walking past him without looking over her shoulder.

He caught up to her in a few strides, walking beside her. “Then at least let me introduce myself,” he said. “I’m Niklaus.”

There was something about his proximity to her that made her skin prickle. She could feel the magic rolling off of him in waves, and she longed to move closer, to let it wash over her. The intensity of her sudden desire for him was unnerving, and she found herself wondering whether he felt it too and that’s why he was turning up everywhere she went. 

Niklaus... What if he was N?

No, she couldn’t let herself go down that path. She had to find a way home, and being distracted by a medieval boy that she’d have to leave behind wouldn’t be helpful. Sure, the prophecy talked about a soulmate, but she was an independent person. If she had to choose between true love and running water, showers would win every single time.

Right? Right.

“I’m not interested,” she lied, walking faster.

Even if he was her soulmate, he was just going to die, and she wasn’t about to put herself through that kind of heartache. 

Especially since he was so damn  _ annoying _ .

* * *

 

Her reaction had been odd, to say the least.

Not only did she not respond well to assistance or flattery, but she didn’t seem interested in exploring the pull between them even though he could tell she could feel it too. It was inconvenient, her insistence on skirting conversations and keeping her guard up, and he needed it to stop.

Everything about Caroline that he’d learned so far had been interesting. She hadn’t softened to him one bit, but she had grown willing to at least allow him monosyllabic answers when he asked her questions and varying reactions when he carried on their mostly one-sided conversation. He could tell it was hard for her not to talk a lot of the time, every inch of her clearly bursting to snap out a retort, and occasionally she couldn’t help herself.

She was witty and intelligent, unafraid of the possibility of rubbing him the wrong way when she wasn’t able to hold her tongue, and it was refreshing. Decoding the different sorts of frowns she had depending on her reaction to something he’d said had been just as satisfying as making her laugh for the first time and the look of surprise on her face once she realized she had. 

After two months of trying his best to coax her out of her shell, he decided that more drastic measures needed to be taken. He waited until she was done watering the plants one morning, stray locks of her blonde hair sticking to her forehead as she rebraided it, determinedly avoiding his eyes.

“I need your help, Caroline.”

She stilled so briefly that if he hadn’t been watching her he would have missed it, her fingers continuing to braid a moment later. “With what?”

“I need you to teach me magic.”

She turned to give him a sympathetic smile that he recognized as someone about to give him bad news, and he rushed to continue before she could get the words out. “I’m a wizard.”

“Then why don’t you have a wand?”

“My...” he trailed off, trying to figure out how much to tell her, suspicious of what seemed to be genuine curiosity. “It’s complicated.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. Okay.”

“Trust me,” he implored, taking a step toward her, and she bit her lip, studying him. 

“Fine. Try it,” she said, handing him her wand. “But if you break it, I swear I’ll-- _ holy shit _ .”

“Beg pardon?” he asked, frowning at the unfamiliar phrase as he waved the wand to re-root the tree back into the ground.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said quickly, still staring at him wide-eyed. “Um...colloquial village thing. From my village. You know, on the other...it doesn’t matter. How did you  _ do  _ that?”

“Magic,” he said dryly, and she huffed, holding out her hand for her wand. 

“I don’t know how much I can teach you then if you can do that already.”

“I can only do a few things. Most of them are because I’ve done accidental magic.”

“Isn’t your mom a witch, though? Why hasn’t she--”

“It’s complicated,” he interrupted again, wincing when she jerked back and realizing how harsh his tone was. “Sorry, love.”

“It’s fine,” she said slowly, though she looked more wary now. “I get it. Um...how about we meet in the forest tomorrow when I usually get water and you usually...” she trailed off, gesturing awkwardly at his bare chest, making him grin. So she had noticed him in the river. He’d wondered.

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“And don’t call me that,” she muttered, putting her wand in her pocket. “I’ll only be able to teach you a few things without you having your own wand, because most wands don’t work well for people who aren’t their owners.”

“The tree seemed to get uprooted fine,” he pointed out, and she huffed, already turning to walk back to her house.

“Tomorrow morning,” she shot over her shoulder before striding away.

He grinned as he sunk down on the ground and leaned against the fence, pleased that he’d managed to convince her to help. All he had to do was gain her trust, let him ‘borrow’ her wand for practice... It was more than a bit cruel, but she was simply collateral damage. It was the way it had to be. 

She’d never see it coming.


	3. Chapter 3

****Of all of the outcomes of his plan to seduce the girl for her magic, falling under her spell himself while she stayed distant and guarded had not been one he’d planned for. She was brilliant and kind, her carefully constructed shell occasionally cracking when he managed to distract her from their ‘lessons’ with conversations. He’d coaxed out some personal information, though she’d been careful not to give him too much.

She was an only child, something that he couldn’t help but envy just slightly, and she seemed to remember her parents fondly. She’d also let slip that she’d gone to school somewhere, though she’d hastily clarified that it had just been her and a few other children being homeschooled together. He doubted it was the whole truth, but he hadn’t pressed, deciding that it would push her away too much.

He was making steady progress, but she still seemed to be holding back despite his gentle prodding for her to open up. Still, she met him every morning at sunrise to teach him magic, and he absorbed every single thing she said with rapt attention, only occasionally getting distracted by the way her lips formed the words.

“No,” she was saying with forced patience, repeating the wand movement again at the pile of sticks in front of them. “Up in a curve like this to a point and then down again, ending with a jab. See? Incendio.”

The sticks burst into a healthy flame, sparks shooting up, and she hastily waved her wand to extinguish it before handing it to him with an expectant look.

“Like this, love?” he asked, doing the wand movement incorrectly again, careful to make the point at the top a bit more rounded than she had, and she reached out to grab his wrist as he began to say the spell, her soft fingers warm against his skin.

“No. Here,” she moved her hand up to wrap around his, moving closer so that she could more easily guide his movements. He tried to be subtle as he inhaled the scent of her hair, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded when she flushed pink, guiding his hand quickly as though rushing to get through it. “Incendio.”

He did it correctly on the next try, catching the pleased smile she shot him before she realized what she was doing, her face going blank again. After a wave of the wand to extinguish the flames, she took it back, tucking it in her pocket. “I think that’s basically all I can do for you that would be helpful,” she said.

“That can’t possibly be true, love.”

She bit her lip, looking at him through her eyelashes before she turned away. “I mean, I don’t have anything actually useful left. Unless you want to learn to make a pinecone dance--”

“If it means another moment with you, love, I would never say no.”

She scoffed, and he could immediately see that it had been the wrong move to flirt, her eyes narrowing as she stared him down, her shoulders tensing. “Look, Niklaus...I’m helping you because you basically threatened to out me for my magic. This isn’t out of the goodness of my heart.”

“Caroline, I told you that it wasn’t a threat.”

“And you expected me to believe that?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

“I...” he trailed off. It had occurred to him in the beginning to follow through if she refused to assist him, but he doubted he’d ever actually be able to go through with it. He was growing more reluctant to betray her despite knowing he’d have to eventually, and he had no desire to hang back to see the result of his actions. He thought she’d be deeply hurt whether she hated him or not, and he wasn’t sure he could handle that.

“You?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I would never tell anyone your secret, Caroline,” he said finally, rolling out the words in a low tone, trying to sound as genuine as he wanted the words to be. “You can trust me whether you decide to help me or not.”

She eyed him warily, turning her wand around in her fingers before shrugging and looking at the still-smoking pile of sticks. “I’m not interested,” she said, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself than him. “In you, I mean.”

The words stung, but Caroline was a bad liar. He could tell that she felt their connection as much as he did, that she _wanted_ him.

“I’m not asking for your interest. I’m asking for your help,” he said, and she gave him a suspicious look, though she seemed to relax slightly.

“Okay,” she said after a second. “Well, that doesn’t change that I don’t have much else to help you with.”

“Fine, then,” he said, trying his best to remember that lashing out wouldn’t help anything, that the tentative faith she had in him had to be nurtured rather than extinguished. “Thank you for your help, then.”

She looked faintly surprised that he didn’t fight, but seemed to come back to herself quickly. “You’re welcome.”

“May I walk you back to the village?”

She looked torn for a few moments, her teeth worrying her lower lip before she made eye contact with him, the tension growing thick with just a glance. “Fine.”

* * *

 

“Caroline!”

She nearly groaned out loud. Why wouldn’t Niklaus stop _bothering_ her?

Ever since she’d made the mistake of grasping his hand around her wand and felt that sizzle of magic against magic that was just as good as she’d remembered from their hands brushing together on their walk, she’d been trying to avoid him. She was getting too attached to his stupid dimples and teasing remarks, letting herself fall for him too quickly, and it was getting harder to turn him away, especially since she had become more and more convinced that he had taken her determined shutdowns of his attempts to win her over as a challenge rather than a sign that she absolutely was _not interested_. To be fair, it was ye olden days where women weren’t exactly known for having agency. He probably didn’t realize how creepy he was being.

Plus, she kind of _was_ interested, even as much as she didn’t want to be. She was almost positive that he was her soulmate, the one the prophecy spoke of, and every inch of her longed to give into him.

“Yes, Niklaus?” she asked, turning to face him and trying her best not to take in the way his tunic clung to him and the stubble that emphasized his jaw. She kind of hated that she noticed when he shaved, that she even had a preference for which stage of facial hair he was in--’lumberjack chic’ was all the rage when she’d time traveled, but she’d never been partial to it--and she’d become more convinced by the day that she needed to shake off these unwanted feelings before she was tempted to get attached to a time period with no showers or mattresses where she’d be rewarded by him dying anyway.

“You’ve heard of the upcoming festival, I assume?”

It would have been impossible not to, considering how excited the family she was living with were about it. Apparently it only happened once a year and it was an opportunity for women to show off their ‘wifely skills’ ( _gross_ ) as well as some dancing and food. She thought she’d managed to convince her hosts that they didn’t need to look for a husband for her, but there was always the possibility they were doing it behind her back, and she would rather not use an unforgivable curse to mind control someone to not play matchmaker.

“Yes, I have,” she said reluctantly.

“Save me a dance?”

From the way he was looking at her it was clear that he expected her to say no but wanted to ask just in case, and she knew she probably should turn him down, but she somehow couldn’t get the word ‘no’ out. She was too curious, couldn’t help wanting to know more about her soulmate before she had to let him go.

The prophecy had said that they would be ‘joined in his death’. She was positive that the bit about her being ripped away before her time was about her getting launched back to her own timeline. Either way, they’d be separated even if she’d always know that they could have had an epic love.

Would it be so wrong to allow herself to get to know Niklaus before she lost him? She’d been so determined to save herself the pain of losing him, but she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to resist just a taste.

All it took was for him to run his hand through his blonde curls for her mind to wander to how those calloused hands would feel on her waist and wonder how his heated his eyes would be when she met them in the low torchlight.

“Fine,” she said, fighting down a smile at the way his eyes lit up.

All of that work to avoid him and her feelings and their fate unraveled in just one moment, and when she walked away she found that she had no regrets.

* * *

 

“You look beautiful tonight, Caroline,” Niklaus said, his eyes soft as he looked at her in the light of the burning torches.

She felt her heart skip a beat, her cheeks warming, and she hoped he didn’t notice, though from the small smile playing on his lips she had a feeling that he was watching her too closely to pass it off as a coincidence. “Thank you.”

They danced in comfortable silence for a minute or two, the chattering of voices and loud singing around them making it easier for her to not break restart the conversation.

“How are you enjoying it here?”

“The festival?”

“The village. Living here,” he clarified, and she shrugged, not meeting his eyes.

“I...” she began, trailing off. “I miss home.”

“And where’s home for you?”

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. It was odd that she’d let the small admission out without thinking about it. She’d been so careful to be private. He’d been trying to unravel her walls and learn her secrets for the past few months, and as much as she wanted to hold them tightly she found herself wanting to be able to confide in him, even if she couldn’t tell him everything.

“You can tell me, Caroline,” he coaxed, his hand tightening slightly around hers as though worried she’d run off on him--not an unlikely outcome, she had to admit. “I must admit that your need for secrecy around your origins is a bit baffling to me.”

“Why do you think you have the right to my secrets?” she shot back defensively. “Why should I trust you?”

“Have I ever given you a reason not to?”

“That’s not enough.”

“And why’s that, love?”

“The absence of a reason doesn’t justify something being true. Have you ever seen a horse fly?”

“Of course not.”

“And how do you know it can’t? Perhaps it does so in secret.”

The look he gave her was a cross between exasperation and amusement, and he spun her around in his arms, looking at her intently when she met his eyes again. “Perhaps,” he murmured. “And what would it take for you to fly for me?”

She rolled her eyes. How did someone say ‘cheesy’ in viking?

“I’m from a small village. You wouldn’t have heard of it,” she said finally, glancing at him to judge his reaction.

“And you came here alone?”

“Yes.”

“And you left your parents behind? Your friends?”

“Yes.”

“Not a betrothed, I assume? Or he would have accompanied you.”

“You’re not subtle, but no.”

He gave her an unrepentant grin. “And your family here?”

“Not family. They were kind enough to take me in,” she said, growing wary of how many questions he had. “What about your family?”

His mouth tightened into a thin line. “What about them?”

“You have siblings.”

“Yes.”

“And your mother is a witch.”

“Yes,” he said again, his tone growing terse.

“And your father--”

“I want to hear about you,” he interrupted, clearly trying to keep his tone light but failing. “My family isn’t nearly as fascinating a story as a pretty girl turning up out of nowhere.”

“But you can’t expect me to share everything about my life with no reciprocation.”

He seemed to mull it over for a second, his thumb absently gliding over hers. “My family came over after the Battle of Svolder took my brother. I was young enough that I don’t remember much of it. My parents took us across the sea and resettled here. Not exactly a rare family history.”

“I guess not.”

She tried to decide whether to give into the temptation to share more, but they were interrupted by a sandy-haired man with a pointed chin, swaying with intoxication. “Boy!”

She could practically see Klaus’s expression shut down as he turned to face the man, his entire posture stiffening. “Father,” he said quietly, though the word held no affection. It seemed almost like a taunt.

The man’s teeth gritted, and Caroline instinctively shrunk back into herself, her hand diving into the pocket she’d sewn into her dress to wrap her fingers around her wand. He was clearly dangerous.

“Who is this pretty thing?” he slurred, turning to look at Caroline, and she felt her insides turn to ice, her feet feeling rooted to the ground.

“Caroline. I’m new to the village,” she said with as much smoothness as she could gather, holding out her hand to shake automatically. The man raised an eyebrow, though he took it and kissed her knuckles.

_Ick. Not what she’d planned._

She felt the visceral urge to yank her hand back, her disgust showing through in her expression, her lip curling when the man seemed amused.

“Caroline,” he repeated with a sneer, swaying slightly on his feet. “Pretty. Too pretty for you.”

She did pull her hand away now, glancing at Klaus nervously to follow his lead--clearly he’d know his father better than she would--but he looked just as frozen as she did, possibly more scared.

That was the biggest clue that this man was not to be trifled with. They were saved from responding when a delicate hand rested on the man’s upper arm, a woman with high cheekbones and long, red hair giving him a look of thinly veiled distaste. “Mikael, they’ve just taken the meat off of the fire,” she said, her voice low but clear. “Aren’t you hungry?”

He seemed torn for a moment before nodding and letting the woman, Niklaus’s mother, Caroline assumed, to lead him away. Niklaus let out a long breath, his shoulders relaxing from their tense posture. “Sorry, love,” he said, tugging her away from the clearing and leading her to the other side of the crowd from where his parents had gone.

“It’s okay,” she said, still a bit shaken.

He looked angry, his teeth bared as he glanced in the direction of his parents, and she froze when she took in his expression, her heart beating fast as she realized why he looked so familiar. She’d seen that expression before more than a few times. His golden curls had been shorter in the photos, his dimples showing less due to his constant snarling. His ostentatious 18th century tunic had been replaced with a henley and corded necklaces in the newer editions, but even in these medieval clothes he was unmistakably the same face as the one that stared up at her from chocolate frog cards she’d traded since she was a little girl.

The Original Hybrid. Part wolf, part vampire, entirely deadly.

“Klaus,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “You’re _Klaus_.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, raising an eyebrow. “I am.”

She bit back a hundred things she wanted to say, instead staring at him with wide eyes.

_...the bastard wolf’s mate ripped away before her time, their souls joined in his death, their love immortal..._

What if she’d had it wrong? What if the ritual was him turning into a vampire? What if he hadn’t died at all?

_Their love immortal..._

“I have to go,” she breathed, walking as fast as she could towards the house she was staying in, resisting the urge to look back.

* * *

 

And to think, he’d been under the delusion that she was starting to like him.

He felt his nails bite into his palms as he stared at the fish swimming in the river, the spear lying forgotten by his leg.

He didn’t understand what was so enticing about Caroline, what made him unable to think about any woman but her, and whatever it was, he wasn’t sure he liked it. He thought he had her mostly figured out. She seemed to respond well to genuine vulnerability rather than pretty compliments, had a preference for small thoughtful favors rather than material gifts. He watched her carefully and found her delightfully free with smiles and laughter, though her displeasure when applicable was just as difficult for her to hide in her expressions.

The festival had made him reconsider, overthinking every possible explanation for her fleeing after seemingly putting together that his given name was the long-form of a nickname barely anyone ever called him. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had used it.

A puzzle, to be sure.

In any case, her sudden nervousness around him was inconvenient at best. His plan to acquire her assistance to leave the village had been going along swimmingly, especially after he’d decided it would be more efficient to simply ask for her hand as an excuse to take her with him. She had been slow to make friends in the village for some reason despite her bright personality and wit, and he couldn’t help but think she resisting getting attached for some reason. Perhaps she wanted to leave as well.

Though he had no interest in admitting it to anyone else, he knew that he had to acknowledge at least to himself that he cared for her more deeply than he’d intended to, had grown fond of her when he’d simply meant to use her as a means to an end. She’d seen it in the beginning of course--she was a perceptive little thing--but as he’d grown more attached, he’d thought she’d grown more open, had perhaps grown attached to him as well.

It was entirely possible he’d been mistaken, that he’d read her incorrectly and she had no affection for him, but something told him that wasn’t the case. He saw the way she looked at him, the way her eyes slid over his skin and her eyes darkened, her tongue poking out to lick her lips. She was at least attracted to him, and she didn’t seem the type to laugh at his jokes if she didn’t find them funny. He’d seen her give other men in the village a blank stare when they’d attempted to earn her approval.

He threw a rock in the middle of the river and watched the fish scatter away from the splash before standing up to go back to his family, picking up the bucket that was full of the fish he’d caught earlier that afternoon.

He knew something was wrong the moment he stepped through the entrance, dropping the bucket of fish by the door and looking at Mikael’s smug face, remaining silent. He knew better than to speak before being spoken to.

“I was...concerned when I saw you at the festival with...Caroline, was it?”

Klaus remained silent, already not at all liking the direction of the conversation. “Yes.”

“Her father noticed as well and approached me about a possible match.”

Klaus’s eyes narrowed, a nasty feeling of foreboding swelling in his stomach. What Mikael was saying was almost certainly too good to be true. He’d never do something that would actually make Klaus _happy_. Mikael didn’t know that Klaus was the product of an affair with a wolf (the shame of it might have made him kill Esther outright), but he certainly knew that Klaus wasn’t his son, and Klaus had learned through experience that just that was enough for him to be as cruel as possible.

He was still waiting for his response, a smug smirk spreading over his face, and it took a few beats of silence for Klaus to realize that he wasn’t going to get the rest of the story unless he asked.

“And?”

“Well, I had to turn him away, of course. I couldn’t bear to give you such a low-class match. Even if I could, you’re already betrothed to another.”

“Pardon?” Klaus asked, fighting to keep his tone even despite every instinct telling him to wrap his hands around Mikael’s neck.

“Tatia should do nicely. She does have a child and has a reputation for a wandering eye, but...” he trailed off with a light shrug that did nothing to mitigate the look of delight on his face at having done something so unbelievably petty.

“Niklaus?”

Klaus broke eye contact with his father to meet his mother’s softer gaze. “Yes?”

“Ayana asked me to prepare an elixir for her stomach pain. Will you bring it to her?”

“Of course, Mother.”

He could feel Mikael’s eyes burning into his back as he left, elixir in hand.

There was no argument to be made with Mikael, not without being beaten within an inch of his life anyway, and Klaus immediately started trying to figure out how to turn this to his advantage. Tatia was a short-term inconvenience, especially considering that when his brother returned from school he wouldn’t be ecstatic to see the woman he’d planned on courting promised to his bastard brother, though he would of course bow his head and comply for the sake of _family_. He’d always been much too sentimental. However, it was an obstacle that he could make an asset.

Caroline wouldn’t like hearing that she’d been offered up as a bride, the fact that it had likely been without her permission making it even worse, and he suspected that she’d have difficulty parsing that anger with her jealousy and offense at him being promised to someone as unpleasant as Tatia over her. He’d use that to convince her to leave with him. She was intelligent and had most likely gathered that it was only a matter of time before she’d be given a husband of her own, one unlikely to find her sharp tongue endearing.

Given the choice, he was confident she’d choose him.

The walk to Ayana’s was short, the nearly-full moon giving him just enough light to see by without a torch. He shifted from foot to foot on the doorstep after he knocked, waiting for the old witch to come to the door. There was something that had always unnerved him about her, the way she carried herself giving out the unmistakable aura of someone who knew better whether you liked it or not.

He wasn’t overly fond of her, and he didn’t think she liked him much either.

“Child,” she greeted when the door opened. Klaus bristled, though he didn’t say anything as he handed the elixir over, their hands brushing.

She went rigid, her eyes rolling back in her head as her mouth opened forming silent words before a voice came out that sounded wholly unlike her usual raspy tones.

“From the tragedy of a full moon bright, a ritual comes to fix what was already whole. The bastard wolf’s mate ripped away before her time, their souls joined in his death, their love immortal.”

He stared at her for a full thirty seconds as she repeated the words over and over before coming to his senses and reaching to push her gently on the shoulder. “Ayana.”

She flinched, blinking a few times before looking down to where she was grasping the elixir. “Do stop dawdling on my porch, child. It’s growing late.”

She slammed the door in his face before he could tell her that she’d just given him a prophecy.

A prophecy about _him_.

His mind was racing, compiling the new information and trying to figure out what it could possibly mean. He had a soulmate––a possibility his mother had mentioned off-handedly when speaking about the wolf village close by, but exceedingly rare––and she would die early. But then how would their love be immortal?

It was all very confusing, but a small piece of him, one more instinct-driven than logic-based, told him that he knew exactly who his soulmate was, and that the first order of business would be convincing Caroline to allow him her hand.

Now that he knew for sure that she was _his_ , he couldn’t bear to lose her.


	4. Chapter 4

****It wasn’t that she’d been _avoiding_ Niklaus—Klaus?—per se, but she might have been doing her chores in a different order in hopes to miss him, had been exploring alternative locations to take walks. Word traveled fast in the village despite her purposeful lack of ties, and she knew he’d been betrothed to that girl who looked like one of her classmates at Ilvermorny. Elena had been in Thunderbird, and Caroline remembered her as equally insufferable and self-righteous as Tatia seemed to be. She doubted Klaus would be happy with the match, especially since Tatia had a child. Parenthood was totally _not_ up Klaus’s alley.

Caroline could admit to herself that she was more than a little jealous. It probably wasn’t Klaus or Tatia’s fault, but it still hurt. He was _hers. Her_ soulmate. Even just the idea of the other girl’s hands on his skin made her skin heat with irrational rage.

The full moon was rising overhead and she knew that she should get down to the caves with everyone else, but she didn’t want to face the village, didn’t want to hear the gossip. She had her wand and could put up barrier spells. There werewolves wouldn’t touch her and she’d have some privacy, at least.

Sighing, she slipped through the front door of her hut and screamed when she saw someone already inside it, reaching into her pocket to draw her wand.

“Easy, sweetheart,” Klaus said quickly, grabbing her wrist gently before she could curse him. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You’re sitting alone in complete darkness in someone else’s house waiting for them to come home and you didn’t think it would startle me? _Lumos_.”

The light from her wand illuminated the room enough that she could see Klaus’s slightly sheepish expression as he stood in front of her, hands clasped behind his back. “Again, my apologies.”

She hummed to show she’d heard, waving her wand to create a floating ball of light so that she wouldn’t have to aim the lighting spell and sat down on her mattress, looking at him expectantly. “So? Why are you here?”

“You, of course,” he said, ignoring scoff and boosting himself up to sit on the roughly hewn wooden table. “I assume you heard the news?”

“Yes. Congratulations on your betrothal,” she said, knowing her voice sounded ridiculously hollow but unable to muster any genuine warmth.

“Congratulations wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for.”

She pointedly stared out the window as she tried to figure out a response. She wouldn’t be here long, not with the ritual in the prophecy saying that she’d be sent back to her own time. Sure, Klaus would be _Klaus_ in the future, but she doubted he’d remember a girl who was only in his life for a few months. He’d have been with thousands of women by then, wouldn’t he? A thousand years of life plus normal amounts of sex? Assuming at least one per year, which made total sense...

She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the thought. It made her sick to her stomach.

Still, it wasn’t fair to either of them to ask him to break of his engagement, even if it was a loveless one, when she’d soon be gone. She couldn’t resist asking though, desperately needing reassurance that he had the same feelings for her even if he’d undoubtedly forget about her when she left.

She had to know.

She swallowed, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear and meeting Klaus’s eyes, inhaling sharply when she saw how he was looking at her. Like he was fascinated. Like he was hooked on every movement she made. “What...what were you hoping for?”

“Something,” he said after a much-too-long silence, sounding a bit exasperated. “Jealousy, I suppose? Anger?”

Caroline swallowed, trying to find the words, but Klaus kept talking before she could.

“I care about you, Caroline. More than I ever intended to. I have no desire for Tatia. None. I simply want you. I want your wit and your compassion, your secret smiles and your protectiveness. Your loyalty.”

“Niklaus...” she breathed, trying to find any motivation to stop herself from melting into him and then any kind of guilt that she couldn’t. She wanted him so badly, craved his touch and his scent, desperately shamefully missed their time practicing magic in the forest.

It would hurt both of them to give in, but Klaus had a thousand years to get over her. He’d be fine, right? And sure, she’d get sent back to her normal time, in love with a man who undoubtedly forgot her, but she’d be fine. There were other fish in the sea, right?

“Yes, Caroline?”

He’d been waiting for her to continue, staring at her as she gathered her thoughts, and she took a deep breath, standing to walk over to him and taking his hand in hers. “I want you too,” she said quietly.

The heat in his eyes at her words made her feel more desired than she’d ever felt in her life with just a look. She forgot to breathe, too lost in the way he _looked_ at her, leaning into his touch when he reached to caress her cheek. She was so impatient for his lips on hers, but she worried that if she broke the moment it would all come crashing down. What if she came to her senses and realized that this was a terrible idea?

He seemed to have no such reservations, leaning in to brush his lips against hers.

She melted into him immediately, the feel of his soft lips against hers much too gentle for her tastes, and she leaned forward to deepen the kiss, satisfied at the groan that sounded low in his throat when she parted her lips for his tongue. He stood from the table and easily reversed their positions, his hands burning against her skin through her simple dress as he lifted her on the table and stood between her thighs, meeting her lips in hot, frenzied kisses, both of them unable to get enough of each other.

“I love you,” he said when he pulled away, his eyes going wide as soon as he said it, clearly not having meant to let it slip.

She smiled, reaching for his cheeks to pull him back to her.

“I love you too.”

He gave her the most brilliant smile she’d ever seen, one that warmed her completely, made her feel safe. His lips had just found her neck, sucking on her pulse point as her hands fiddled with the drawstrings of his trousers when a scream shattered the stillness of the night.

Klaus jerked away, clearly startled.

“What was that?”

“Stay here,” he ordered, and she bristled at his sharp tone as he peeked through the front door. “I think someone’s snuck out of the caves.”

Caroline winced, her irritation with him forgotten at the thought of someone getting caught in the jaws of a wolf pack. “I hope they’re okay.”

Klaus gave her a grim smile. “I hope so too, love.”

* * *

 

By the time the villagers found out what had happened to Esther’s children after the full moon, they were already doomed. He found that the screams of the men and women he’d known since birth were almost as delicious as the blood that rushed down his throat, leaving a small pile of corpses in his wake.

He’d never felt so _alive_ , his entire body humming with energy and crackling magic, every inch of him itching to play with his food. He made his way through the town square looking for any stragglers, was tempted to suck out the blood that soaked the fabric of his tunic as he waited for his next meal, needing to savor every last drop. Before he’d decided whether table manners were something a monster could forego, he heard familiar footsteps approach, and he looked up to locate who was somehow simultaneously the person he most and least wanted to see.

“Oh my god, Klaus! Are you okay?” Caroline asked, running up to him and reaching to take his tunic between her fingers, frantically tugging it up to check for injuries, wand pointed at his unblemished skin.

“I’m fine, sweetheart,” he said, trying to ignore the sound of her blood, almost able to taste her on his tongue.

“Then why are you covered in--”

“Caroline,” he said softly, reaching to take her hands in his and looking into her eyes, resisting the urge to lunge forward and take a _bite_. “I have something to tell you, sweetheart.”

Her eyes dragged up and down his form in a slow burn before she met his gaze, her mouth pinched. “You’re a vampire,” she said tightly, and though she looked at him with wary eyes when he nodded, she didn’t flinch away.

“How did you know?”

She looked genuinely uncomfortable, shifting back and forth on her feet and looking down at their joined hands. He tried to keep his eyes from settling on the pulse in her throat but he found it difficult when she was exposing it so casually. “Caroline--”

“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she admitted quietly, looking up at him with wide, imploring eyes.

“Beg pardon?”

“I...don’t be mad, okay? I just...I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“What could possibly be more unnerving than me being turned into a blood-sucking monster?” Klaus asked, eyebrows raised.

She bit her lip, nodding to concede the point, though she still had to steel herself before the words came out in a rush. “I’m not from this time period.”

“Beg pardon?” he asked, almost choking on the question.

_The bastard wolf’s mate ripped away before her time..._

She huffed, crossing her arms in front of her chest, refusing to meet his eyes. “I’m from the future. It’s a long story, but--”

“You’re my mate,” he said quietly, his heart swelling now that he knew for certain that Caroline was his.

She frowned. “You know about the prophecy?”

He tensed, caught unaware by her question. “The prophecy was given to me. How do _you_ know about it?”

“I found it right before I time traveled.”

“How does one _find_ a prophecy, exactly?”

“I was sorting the records of them for my internship and there was one that had my name on it.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation he couldn’t help but enjoy how put out she looked, her lips pressed together in annoyance, sparks shining in her eyes. “What’s an internship?”

“Really? _That’s_ your question?”

He gave her a prompting nod and she huffed. “It’s like...an unpaid job.”

“So you’re a slave?”

She paused, clearly trying to figure out whether he was joking. “Um...I mean, you get like, skills and stuff,” she said slowly, huffing when he continued to stare at her, more than a bit mystified by the concept of purposefully working for no pay in exchange for so-called _skills_ . “Look, the screwed up employment issues of the future are _so_ not the point right now.”

Fair; he had better things to investigate.

“So you admit it?”

“Admit what?”

“You’re my mate.”

She seemed like she was trying desperately not to roll her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering as though she’d barely stopped herself. “Yes. We’re soulmates. That’s what the prophecy said.”

“And yet you were so resistant when we first met.”

“Yeah, because you were being an asshole,” she pointed out with a toss of her hair. “I wasn’t sure that you were actually my soulmate in the beginning. Plus, once I figured it out...” she trailed off, suddenly a bit more sober, and it didn’t take him longer than a moment to figure out why.

“You thought I was going to die.”

“I mean, it seemed reasonable from the prophecy’s phrasing,” she said defensively. “I didn’t want to, you know...”

“Fall in love with me?” he asked smugly, and she let out a soft huff that he knew all too well, one that meant he’d won and she wasn’t happy about it.

“I mean, it’s not like it worked,” she muttered after a few seconds of silence, and he grinned even wider.

“That’s true,” he said, watching her carefully. The various stages of expressions Caroline’s face progressed through when she was trying not to smile was one of his favorite things to watch, her scowl twisting into a tight-lipped glare that clearly took all of her willpower to keep in place before she looked away from him determinedly as though it would help her suppress her annoyance melting away.

Riveting.

“If it’s any consolation, I knew you were mine the moment I saw you,” he said, squeezing her hands and pulling her closer.

“Liar,” she muttered, though she let him pull her more fully against him, her hands resting on his shoulders and he traced the lines of her hips.

“Not at all. Unlike some of us,” he said, giving her a look that made her bristle.

“I had to lie, okay? What was I going to do? Tell you I’m from the year 2010 in the middle of a weird viking holiday festival?”

“You didn’t have to _lie_.”

“I mean, I did, but I’ll tell you anything you want to know now, okay?”

The sincerity shining in her eyes was enough for him, and he let her lean in for a kiss, their lips brushing gently before she melted against him. He felt his fangs emerge from his gums, scraping along her lip before he’d thought about it, and he didn’t realize until he heard her muffed squeak of surprise and tasted her on his tongue that he’d accidentally hurt her.

He pulled back immediately, taking a step away and trying to keep his monster from emerging. He could feel the veins spidering down his face regardless, unable to stop the deep inhale of her scent even as he tried to resist. “Sorry, sweetheart. I won’t hurt you, I--”

“It’s fine,” she interrupted, reaching to cup his cheek, her thumb brushing over his fang. “No more secrets. From either of us. Promise?”

“Always and forever.”

* * *

 

Caroline hummed beside him as she shifted against his chest, burying her nose into his neck to fend off the early light. When they did their morning chores, she’d always been grumpier just after sunrise, her words carrying more bite until the haze of tiredness had left her. It hadn’t taken long for him to figure out that she wasn’t partial to mornings. He couldn’t imagine them without her now, despite her only joining him in his bed since he’d been turned.

They spent night after night talking about the future and about his past. He was supposedly ‘kind of a big deal’ in the future. He and his siblings were one of many historical figures who had little pieces of paper with their faces on them that children traded for amusement. She had learned about him in school, had written an essay on one of the massacres Kol would supposedly commit in the future. His heart had dropped to his stomach when she admitted that her father used to scare her into behaving by telling her that Klaus the Monster would come drain her dry in the night if she was bad.

He held her and told her that he would never let anything happen to her. He took good care of things that belonged to him, after all.

They weren’t officially betrothed, of course, but considering all the humans around them would soon be too dead to care about that silly convention he didn’t see the point in asking. Now that he had risen above normal human conventions, wife seemed too simple a word for what she meant to him.

Admittedly, he did want the thrill of calling her _his,_ even if it was just murmured in her ear as he made her quiver in his arms. He had every intention of describing to her in filthy, explicit detail all the ways he wanted to touch her once he was sure he could control his own strength, and until then he’d coax her into tugging her nipples while he watched, her eyes glazed as she slipped her hand between her thighs, breathlessly moaning his name.

He loved the feel of her against him, the way she already pressed as close to him as possible, their legs tangling. It was only made better by the spell she’d cast on what was now their mattress to make it softer and thicker. She’d told him of the future, where the beds were plush and large, the sheets luxuriously soft, and he longed to see her tangled in them, wanted to sketch the picture that she’d painted for him and bring it to life.

The prophecy had been fulfilled: He’d died, though he’d come back to life, and Caroline had been sent ‘before her time’, which was clearly to his timeline. She needn’t be worried for his safety anymore, and he had no reason to worry that she wouldn’t be _his_.

His mate. Their souls intertwined for as long as they lived, their love immortal.

Still, for his fantasies of their future together to become real, she’d have to turn before she fell ill or had some sort of accident. Surely he could convince her to let him turn her in order to keep her by his side, no matter her misgivings of losing her power. He was doing fine without, after all, was even enjoying his speed and strength more than he had his magic.

Her heartbeat was thumping loud in her chest, the rush of blood in her veins reminding him of how very _fragile_ she was, and he couldn’t help that his mouth watered.

His siblings couldn’t seem to control their bloodlust, and though she had magic he wouldn’t put it past their monsters to enjoy the enhanced difficulty of their hunt. He’d assumed he’d be able to control himself, but over the last few days he’d found that his bloodlust wasn’t any different, possibly worse in regards to her due to his craving for her body as well as her blood.

She moaned again, shifting next to him, and he felt his fangs descend as his craving for her blood grew stronger.

“I’ll be back in just a bit, love,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple, careful to avoid her skin with his fangs.

She made a noise that might have been annoyance, reaching to pull him back into bed when he slipped away, and he let himself smile as he left. It wouldn’t take long to find a villager who was risking venturing out of their home for food. Most hadn’t bothered to stockpile for winter yet, and once his mother had made them daylight rings they’d been terrified to venture out lest they become a meal.

He stumbled upon one soon enough, his heart pumping fast out of fear as he walked quickly to the forest with a crossbow. It wasn’t hard to accost him, Klaus’s hand covering his mouth as he latched onto the man’s neck, taking long gulps of blood.

He savored the way the man’s heart slowed over time, satisfied by the feeling of holding the man’s fate in his hands, and the sound of the now-corpse falling to the ground as he ripped that life away was even better.

After hunting down two rabbits for Caroline he sped back to the hut, anxious to see that she was still alive despite knowing his siblings couldn’t enter. When he arrived he was relieved to see her perfectly safe and waving her wand to clean the bedsheets, though he grimaced the sharp scent pungent in his nostrils that he couldn’t quite describe. She seemed to notice his discomfort, a wave of her wand making the sheets dry before folding themselves and settling on the bed. “Hey,” she said, eyeing the dead rabbits in his hands with thinly veiled distaste. “What did the bunnies do to you to deserve that?”

“They’re for you.”

She stilled for a moment before recovering, her lips pressed together. “Oh. I don’t know how to cook rabbit.”

“You’ve been in this century for how long?”

She shrugged. “A few months. Brenna did most of the cooking. She didn’t let me after I burned some kind of deer meat. Go ahead and put them on the table.”

She eyed the dead rabbits for a second after he set them down before brandishing her wand, muttering something about ‘Thanksgiving turkeys’ under her breath and carefully drawing her wand along the rabbit’s hide to skin it, her tongue sticking out between her teeth.

He let his hand trail down her spine, noting her shiver and the way she squirmed underneath his hand. “Hey! I have to concentrate.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.”

“You’re not,” she grumbled, though she leaned into his touch when he rested his hand on her hip. “Do you feel more in control now?”

Her voice was slightly breathless, and he had a feeling that she was as impatient to touch him as he was to taste her skin underneath his tongue. He weighed the options before nodding slowly, bending to nip her ear. “I do, but perhaps we could give you some blood just to make sure?”

She stilled for a moment before turning to look at him, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just...not yet, okay?”

“Not yet?”

She huffed, a small smile playing on her lips at his hopefulness. “I’m open to being convinced, I promise. I just want to enjoy magic a little bit longer, at least until we can find somewhere else to settle.”

Her use of ‘we’ made his grin much too wide, and she stood on her toes to press a soft kiss to his lips, her wand dropping to the floor when she reached to cup his cheeks. “I have to take care of the garden and do a few other things that can’t wait, but I want you. Tonight?” she offered between kisses, moaning when he trailed his mouth down her jaw, his tongue darting out to taste her skin, already half-hard just at the thought of seeing her nude beneath him moaning his name, suddenly more than aware of how much he craved her. “We can be careful.”

He pulled away before he could give into the temptation to carry her to the bed right then and there and muffle her half-hearted insistence about chores with his tongue, fingers, and cock.

“Of course, love. Full moon, so we shouldn’t be bothered.”

She nodded eagerly, hopping off the table and bending to pick up her wand. “Good,” she said, pressing another peck to his lips. “I’ll be back soon. Can you maybe... deal with the rabbit?”

“Deal with meaning cook?” he asked slowly, and she gave him a familiar exasperated glance.

“Yeah. You’re going to live forever, so might as well get some basic life skills. You’re smart enough to figure out how to put a pot of water on a fire. Just like...boil it or something.”

Before he could protest she’d waved her wand to start a fire and pecked him on the cheek. “Be right back.”

By the time he’d figured out how to boil the water and chopped up the meat to put inside it was nearing the afternoon, and he realized that Caroline had been gone for longer than she should have been. The anxiety hit him like an arrow to the chest, and he sped out of the hut to look for her, not even bothering to put out the fire.

By the time the sun was setting he felt like he’d checked every single piece of the village and forest twice, including running back to their house to see if she’d returned without him realizing it, and had recruited his siblings to help with the search.

His head snapped up from where he was looking through the trees when he heard a shrill scream from the other side of the forest, and he felt his insides turn cold when he heard Caroline scream again, calling for him.

He sped over to the other side of the forest, vaguely aware that the moon was just starting to rise among the clouds, and as soon as he caught sight of her he felt his body folding in on itself even as he tried to fight it. All he could feel in his limbs was blinding pain, his bones cracking in his arms as his back hunched. His vision was blurry as he fought to keep his head upright, vaguely aware of what sounded like his mother chanting. He twisted around as best he could to try to see her and felt his lungs contract when he figured out what he was seeing.

His mother was in the middle of a pentagram, wind whipping around her as she held a stone up to the sky, his soulmate’s body floating in the air in front of her, motionless with glazed eyes.

“Caroline,” he gasped, almost unable to get the words out.

He watched helplessly as her body fell to the ground with a thump, bouncing slightly on the hard ground, and all of a sudden, the pain stopped.

“What did you do to her?” he snarled, speeding over to her, horror hitting him at the lack of heartbeat. He bit his wrist, pressing it to Caroline’s mouth frantically, but it didn’t take, her eyes glassy as the blood smeared across her lips. She was limp and heavy in his arms despite his strength, and he only caught a few words of his mother’s speech, her voice muffled as though he’d stuffed his ears with his fingers.

“Lock the wolf...secret bastard...hybrid ritual...” she was saying, and he stared up at her, his skin hot with rage. His mother had just killed his soulmate.

He reached out to bury his hand in Esther’s chest, taking sadistic satisfaction in the horror as she realized how she’d miscalculated, and he watched apathetically as her corpse fell to the ground beside his soulmate’s, her heart heavy in his hand.

The realization hit him like a punch to the stomach. Esther had been trying to fix her mistake, to lock up the part of him that would prove to Mikael that he was a bastard, and she’d killed Caroline to do it. The prophecy had spoken of Caroline being taken away before her time, but Ayana hadn’t meant her timeline; she’d meant that Caroline died.

 _Joined in his death, their love immortal_...

Love _immortal_.

There was a way to bring her back, there _had_ to be, and he would stop at nothing to do it.


	5. Chapter 5

****“Anything is possible with magic, Bella,” Klaus snarled, resisting the urge to snap the witch’s neck now. It would make it much easier to be able to compel the information of course, but it would be a pity to waste a vessel of such power. “Tell me how to get her back.”

The witch shifted uncomfortably in the shackles, wincing when the metal scraped against her open wrist wound. “Have you heard of the Deathly Hallows?” she asked reluctantly, and he let out a hoarse laugh.

“The Hallows? A children’s story? Even if it were true, the Elder Wand and the cloak are of no use to me. The resurrection stone was lost at the bottom of the sea with its creator. If that’s the information you’re offering you’re better off to me de—“

“The story is true,” the witch said in a rush, her eyes wide and imploring. “Well, a form of it, at least.”

“How so?”

“Your mother used the moonstone to bind your curse, did she not?”

“She did,” Klaus growled out, growing impatient with the witch’s long stream of introductory questions. “Get on with it.”

“She bound your curse in the stone with the soul of the sacrifice,” the witch said, flinching when Klaus moved the knife closer to her throat. “The myth of the three brothers is based in truth. A man found the moonstone and convinced himself that the soul trapped in it was that of his beloved. So wrapped up in his own fantasies, he refused to see that he was mistaken. He grew so frustrated that he killed himself, hoping to reunite with her in death.”

Klaus was growing impatient. “If you’re being truthful--”

“I am,” the witch said, trying to squirm as far away from the knife as possible. “I’ll admit that I’m unsure as to whether the other two Hallows are needed to break the curse, but I do know the stone exists.”

“Then where is it?”

“I don’t know,” the witch said, though when Klaus moved the knife closer to her throat she flinched, speaking quickly to stave off her fate. “There have been rumours that it was stolen by a descendent of Salazar Slytherin who believed the story to be real.”

Klaus groaned. Of course it would be in the possession of the descendents of the most irritating person he’d ever met. Salazar had been insufferably arrogant and condescending but too self-involved to notice that Klaus wasn’t actually eighteen and harmless until it was too late. His death had been relieving but not satisfying, a part of him disappointed to have been denied the epic battle he’d been expecting.

Pathetic man.

“What descendent?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, eyeing the knife in his hand with trepidation. “Last I heard, his grandchildren settled close to Durmstrang. Bulgaria.”

“Thank you, love,” Klaus cooed, bringing his hand up to stroke her cheek. She relaxed slightly, clearly thinking he wasn’t about to kill her when she’d been so helpful.

She was wrong.

* * *

 

“It’s just a moonstone. The priest gave it to me to ward away sickness,” a familiar voice was saying frantically to Trevor. Klaus could hear the room being torn apart as the girl spoke through tears, clearly trying to convince Trevor to let her keep her trinkets.

Little girls were ever so tiresome when attached to their baubles.

He was expecting a mousy little thing, but when he turned the corner and saw the girl who had been tangled with Salazar’s now-dead grandson in his bed while the wife had been out, he smirked.

“And what do we have here?” Klaus murmured, stroking the cheek of the doppelganger. “What’s your name, love?”

“Katerina Petrova,” she said, her chin tipped up stubbornly as she met his eyes, though he could see from how much she was shaking that she was terrified. He stared her down, letting his eyes drag up and down her body to inspect her for any injuries. It wouldn’t do to damage the elusive final ingredient to his ritual.

“I have to find the stone. Leave with the doppelganger, but keep her alive,” Klaus ordered as he thrust the girl at Trevor who immediately took her into his arms, slapping her hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming and breaking free. It was a pity the girl was a witch, but the inability to compel her was a minor setback in the grand scheme of things, especially since she was unable to practice magic without a wand. “We’ll need her later.”

“Stone? For what?”

“Go. Do as I say,” Klaus snapped, turning to catch Trevor’s eyes, and the vampire’s eyes glazed over for a moment before he nodded and dragged the girl away.

He couldn’t trust a minion with the knowledge of the keys to break his curse. He’d already said too much. Making a mental note to himself to compel Trevor to forget their conversation later, he knelt to the floor, quickly locating the loose floorboard and yanking it up, smirking when he saw the small pouch.

Perhaps the witch had been wrong about the resurrection stone, but a moonstone _and_ a doppelganger? His curse-breaking opportunities seemed to be turning a positive corner.

He shook it out eagerly to inspect it, the milky glass smooth against his palm, and he froze when he saw smoke begin to leak out and tangle between his fingers before coalescing into a face he’d only seen in his dreams and sketches for centuries.

She was even more beautiful than he remembered.

“Sweetheart,” he breathed, reaching to touch his once-betrothed’s outstretched hand and feeling his heart sink when he came into contact with air that was bitingly cold. She looked just as disappointed, though she reached to cup his face with her hands, her thumbs brushing over his cheekbones like the drag of splintered ice. He fought not to jerk away, needing her touch any way he could get it.

“Niklaus,” she whispered, resting her forehead against his, pulling back after a moment, the absence of the cold somehow worse than the pain of it against his skin. “Sorry. It burns to touch you, and not in a good way. I wish I could--”

“It’s all right, my love,” he promised, resisting the urge to reach to stroke her hair, not wanting to cause her pain. “Just promise me you’ll allow me a burning touch or two when I set you free.”

She gave him the mischievous smile he’d only been able to savor in his dreams. “Of course. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting, Niklaus?”

“As long as I have, I think,” he said, barely restraining himself from nosing her temple. “The full moon is in mere days, but I’m unsure if I can stand the wait.”

“We’ll find ways to entertain ourselves,” she promised with a wicked grin. “Let’s go, though. If we leave your minions alone too long they’ll do something dumb like try to take initiative and then you’ll kill them. Good help is hard to find.”

* * *

 

“It’s time,” Trevor said from the doorway, and Klaus nodded at him, waving him away.

Caroline looked at him expectantly, clearly vibrating with excitement, ready to be brought back to the land of the living. He was almost sure he was more impatient. “Do you have the wand and cloak?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll get them. Be gone for just a moment, sweetheart,” he promised, and she nodded.

He slipped out of the room where he’d been preparing the reagents and went to the bedroom he had prepared for his and Caroline’s use when she returned, opening the bottom drawer of his dresser and reaching with shaking hands for the long, thin wooden box he kept under the invisibility cloak. He’d decided to get the artifacts just in case he ended up needing them. One could never be too prepared, after all. The man who had taken the loyalty of the Elder Wand had been easy to track down, the braggart letting his guard down to easily after a few drinks. The cloak had been harder to get ahold of, but when he offered a vial of blood to Nicholas Flamel for use in his alchemy experiments, the man had followed through on his end of the bargain with a level of efficiency that almost left Klaus impressed.

He didn’t even try to suppress the smile that grew on his face as he stared at the remaining Deathly Hallows, the magic from the objects thrumming against his skin.

He was finally going to get her back.

Pocketing the wand and throwing the cloak over his arm, he rushed back to the room with the reagents for the ritual, noticing immediately that the milky stone that had held the key to both Caroline’s resurrection and breaking the Hybrid curse was gone.

As if on cue, a crash sounded from the hallway and Rose skidded to a stop in the doorway. “Where is the stone?” he ground out, putting the full force of a threatening tone behind the words.

“I...”

“Where is it?” he demanded, holding her up against the wall by her neck with a flash.

“I--I don’t--the girl escaped--”

“She _what_?”

“She sliced her arm open. Tricked Trevor into feeding her his blood.”

“And then she killed herself,” Klaus finished, so angry he could feel his entire body shaking despite his supernatural restraint, his fangs descending. “You _let her_ transition. You fools.”

“I--”

“And let me guess, you chased her here but didn’t get her in time, and your incompetence let the doppelganger steal the moonstone.”

Rose looked terrified, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m sorry, I--”

“You have an hour,” he snarled. “An hour to run while I got my affairs in order before I hunt you down. You’re lucky I’m letting you live a life of fear instead of ripping out your useless, pathetic heart.”

The moment he set the idiot minion down she sped out of the room, and he roared with rage, throwing a side table through the window, satisfied by the crash of it hitting the stone pathway below.

The doppelganger had been crafty, and a miniscule part of him admired that. She’d clearly manipulated everyone around her to get what she wanted, and he hoped the trend towards self-preservation would continue. Katerina had no idea who she’d provoked. There was a sort of poetic justice in using her for the sacrifice he would eventually make to unlock his wolf again, to bring back his soulmate, and he had every intention of indulging himself with the dramatic irony of it all. In order to do that, he needed her to stay alive, though not too comfortable. Killing her entire family as a warning should do nicely, he decided.

Fate would not be kind to her.

* * *

 

Well, that had only taken five hundred _fucking_ years.

“Katerina.”

He watched with satisfaction as the doppelganger froze in place, her body rigid as though he were a bull that would only charge at moving prey. At least the girl had the good sense not to run. His wolf side might be locked away, but as he’d shown her over the past few centuries, he still loved the chase.

She turned slowly, shaking her long curly hair over her shoulders and staring at him with thickly-lined eyes. “Klaus.”

Their battle of wills was over in the blink of an eye when he got close enough to hold eye contact with her. “Where’s the moonstone?”

“The Lockwood cellar,” she said immediately before clapping a hand over her mouth in horror.

He hadn’t actually expected the compulsion to work. His sources had told him that Katerina religiously took water mixed with vervain powder every morning, and whenever he’d had them replace her supply with a similar substance that shouldn’t have been distinguishable, she somehow always managed to sniff it out almost immediately.

How curious.

“Ah. Someone’s been lax in their vervain, hmm? Now, be a good girl and don’t move, speak, or try to escape in any way, shape or form.”

She glared at him mutinously from where she stood, and he took a few steps towards the front door of the house for sale she’d set up camp in, keeping his movements smooth despite every inch of him being on edge for--

 _That_.

He turned around and grabbed Katherine around the neck as she tried to whoosh out into the yard once his back was turned, slamming her against the wall so hard she cried out, desperately trying to squirm out of his grasp as he held her by the throat. She’d always fancied herself such a good actress. He supposed it was to his advantage that no one had told her that she had poor form.

“Oh Katerina, shouldn’t you know by now not to try to trick me?” he asked, his tone low and mocking, and he snapped her neck before she could shoot back some sort of quip about how she’d tricked him perfectly well last time.

If she reminded him of how she’d _stolen_ the resurrection stone from right under his nose, stolen his mate’s _soul_ , he might have ripped her heart out right then and there. She wouldn’t have been able to participate in the ritual, and wouldn’t that have put a damper on his need for poetic justice...

No. Best that she kept her mouth shut.

He had her bound and gagged in short order in the dungeon, a knife buried in her trachea to keep her from screaming with a compelled guard lingering by the sound-proofed door with strict instructions to keep the doppelganger contained. Caroline had mentioned that she’d had a classmate who looked exactly like Tatia, and he’d done a bit of research. According to his sources, the doppelganger Elena Gilbert lived in this one-pony town, and Katherine had clearly come either to kill the girl out of spite or to offer his ritual’s final ingredient up to him on a platter for her freedom. It could have been a good plan, he supposed, if it weren't for the subpar execution and his penchant for holding grudges.

Maddox was keeping an eye on the human and Klaus had sent Greta to fetch a turned wolf from a pack in South Carolina. The full moon rose the next night at eight o’clock. It would be enough time to bleed the vervain out of Katherine’s system and interrogate her for the stone’s location. He had no doubt that she’d brought it in an effort to seem like she was actually trying to help.

No matter. By this time the next night the curse would be broken and Caroline’s soul would be freed from the moonstone where his mother had trapped it. They would be free.

If only it were that easy.

* * *

 

Klaus had managed to find the stone just in time for the moon’s rising, and Caroline watched through the foggy glass walls of her soul’s prison as the last of the three circles erupted in flames, Klaus’s mouth dripping with her old classmate’s blood.

That’s what Elena got for being a self-righteous pain in the ass, really. It was just karma.

It was hard to discern movement, the feeling of endless floatation when in her trap difficult to separate from the jostling of the actual stone against a hand, but she could tell from the way the walls around her darkened that a palm was covering it, and she heard the muffled chanting indicating that the most important part of the ritual was taking place.

She closed her eyes, could feel the walls of the stone rattling around her, the glass cracking to let her taste the freedom she’d craved since Esther had ripped the life from her body a millennium ago.

She heard the chanting stop, the fire extinguishing all at once, and she saw Klaus’s back bow as his spine began to crack. His transformation was beginning. The curse was broken.

Her breath caught when he opened his eyes, molten gold meeting blue, and for a single moment she believed that they had done it. That they were free.

Her world went black.

* * *

 

Klaus pressed the lift button impatiently in the atrium, glaring at the clattering gold carriages as they moved up and down, and nearly bowling over the short portly man coming out into the lobby when he stormed into the first one that arrived, throwing a wizard who tried to follow across the atrium without a care and pressing the button for level nine.

He tried to calm his racing pulse, his nerves almost overpowering him. He had to find Caroline before she went back in time, had to stop this from happening. He’d convinced her to fall in love with him once, hadn’t he? He could do it again.

“Level Nine. Department of--”

He kicked the door open before the voice could finish, stalking into the center room with the rotating doors. He arbitrarily picked one, reaching over and tearing off the handle, pulling it open to reveal a long hallway.

The Hall of Prophecies, he realized. That’s where Caroline had worked.

He sped down the hallway, arriving at the end by the file cabinets just in time to see a familiar blonde head leave the room, closing the door behind her. He stilled, regretting it a moment later when he heard a crash.

By the time he had the door thrown open it was too late, and he saw Caroline disappear into the sands of a broken hourglass. Howling with rage, he grabbed the nearest object and smashed it against the wall, grinning sadistically when he heard the panicked voices approaching, ready to tear out all of their hearts.

Caroline was dead after all. She wouldn’t miss her bosses, especially as they’d been incompetent enough to let her be thrown back in time. What sort of workplace was this?

He wasn’t surprised when a few curses were sent his way once the workers realized he was an intruder and the crashes hadn’t been an accident, dodging easily and reaching for the nearest to drain her dry, holding the body as a shield in front of him to catch the worst of the curses while he drank. He was caught off-guard when a man came at him from the left and shot some sort of blasting curse, throwing him through another door to the side and tossing him down a set of stone steps.

He was up in a moment, turning to snap the neck of his attacker and holding the body limply in his arms by the neck as he heard an achingly familiar voice.

_“Niklaus...”_

He looked around frantically trying to find Caroline, only seeing a large stone archway with a ratty curtain rippling in a windless room in the center.

_“Niklaus, please...”_

He took a few steps towards the archway, stilling when he heard a voice behind him.

“You know that’s the portal to the land of the dead, right?”

Klaus turned around to find the source of the voice, only seeing a sandy haired man standing in the doorway. He reeked of alcohol and was swaying slightly on his feet, a wild smile on his lips. “You can go through, but you can’t come back. No one does.”

“Is that so?” Klaus asked quietly, glancing back at the veil.

_“Niklaus...”_

“I mean, if you want to take that one-way ticket to your own funeral, that’s fine by me,” the man slurred, waving him off. “Saves the aurors the trouble of arresting you.”

He nearly laughed. As if aurors could ever hope to stop him.

_“Niklaus. My love...”_

He took a deep, shaking breath. He was dead already, right? What could mere magic possibly do to him? He was immortal.

Their love was immortal.

He stepped through.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**** The Other Side did not look the way he thought it would. To be fair, he had never contemplated it all that much since he was invincible and thought he would never set foot there, but if he’d had to guess, it wouldn’t have been this.

He’d expected muted colors and heavier shadows, and that hadn’t been at all off-base, but it was entirely deserted. He’d heard Caroline’s voice, he knew it. Where was she?

“Looking for something?” Klaus turned around to see Ayana leaning against the archway behind him, her face soft and understanding. “Perhaps some _ one _ ?”

Was this the real Ayana? She’d never liked him much, so it didn’t seem likely that she would try to be all that helpful. More likely a trap of some kind.

“Perhaps,” he murmured, staring her down, and she gave him a small smile, one that held less warmth.

“Your mate was human when she died,” Ayana said conversationally, taking a few steps towards him. “ _ Is _ human.”

“I know,” Klaus said coldly. “Any other nuggets of wisdom before I find her?”

“You’d do to be more respectful to those who can help you,” Ayana said chidingly, nodding in the general direction of what was clearly the exit to the room. “There’s quite the world out there. Finding her might be difficult without my help.”

“But do you want to help?” Klaus asked dryly.

Ayana’s smile held no humor, her eyes sharp as she regarded him. “She’s human. She’s  _ dead _ . Her soul didn’t go to the other side. Nothing you do can bring her back.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said calmly, satisfied by the flash of irritation in Ayana’s eyes. 

“Whether you believe me is irrelevant to whether what I’m saying is true,” Ayana growled. “Your soulmate is gone.”

“That’s not what your prophecy said. I believe the exact words were ‘ _ their souls joined in his death, their love immortal’ _ . Tell me Ayana, what definition of immortal are you looking at when you talk about my soulmate being dead?”

“I never said she was immortal.”

“You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t a way,” Klaus said impatiently. “Either be helpful or find someone else to pester.”

Ayana hummed to show she’d heard, cocking her head to the side. “A mix of a vampire and a werewolf is against the balance of nature. It shouldn’t exist.”

“And yet I do,” Klaus bit out, growing tired of Ayana dragging everything out.

“Your mate is meant to balance that. She gives you a weakness.”

“Fascinating. Your point?”

“You can have her back. For a price.”

He bit back the automatic ‘ _ anything’ _ that was on the tip of his tongue, staying silent and waiting for Ayana to continue.

“Let her go, and you can have your immortality and your invincibility. You’ll live knowing that you will never be killed or harmed, that you’re invincible, but that you traded her soul for it.”

“And option two?”

“She’s no longer human,” Ayana said, her tone much too smug considering that that was what Klaus had wanted all along. “As the prophecy says, your souls are joined. Your love is immortal. If she is killed, you’ll die with her. If you go, she follows.”

He barely restrained himself from asking if that was it. Was that all? To tie his life to hers? There had to be a catch. Ayana didn’t continue speaking though, and he eyed her with trepidation.

He valued his immortality, had craved nothing more than to never feel vulnerable again. He had never thought he’d give up his invincibility for anything. But for Caroline...

“And she’ll be immortal as well?”

“Immortal, yes. But not invincible,” Ayana warned. “You’ll never be able to turn her. She stays a witch. A  _ human  _ witch.”

His mouth went dry. Tying his life to a  _ human _ ? Even if it was Caroline it was almost unfathomable. All of his safety tossed away...But if he didn’t do it, he’d never see her again. 

All magic had a reversal of course, a loophole. They could find it.

_ But how long would it take? What if she were human for hundreds of years? Thousands? _

It would be worth it.  _ She _ was worth it.

“I’ll do it,” he said firmly, his tone holding confidence he wasn’t sure he felt until he spoke the words out loud. “Give her to me.”

“Very well,” Ayana said, waving her hand. Caroline’s body appeared, her eyes closed, floating as though she was encased in water, and Klaus reached out to catch her, settling her in his arms. 

“Good luck,” Ayana said.

It didn’t sound like a genuine wish, but Klaus didn’t particularly care. He strode out of the veil, taking a deep gulp of air he didn’t need when the emerged, and he looked down when he felt Caroline stir in his arms.

“Niklaus,” she murmured, her eyes opening blearily. “Where are we? Did you break the curse?”

“Shh, sweetheart.”

“Why are we in the Department of Mysteries?” she asked, clearly coming to her senses more quickly by the moment. “Are we in the veil room? Oh my god, did I--”

“We’ll talk later,” Klaus promised, shifting her in his arms to make her more comfortable. Was it safe to run with her in his arms? Surely the speed wouldn’t damage her? “You need rest.”

“Tell me what happened, Niklaus. We promised no more secrets, remember?”

“Later,” he said again. “I promise.”

* * *

 

Caroline stared at him in complete disbelief as he finished telling her what had happened beyond the veil.

“You  _ what _ ?”

“Don’t fret, sweetheart--”

“Don’t  _ fret _ ? Are you out of your mind? You gave up your invincibility to keep me a human witch forever and if someone kills me you  _ die _ ?”

“Yes,” he said, not looking the least bit ashamed. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat, love.”

“That’s--”

“Because we’re going to figure out a loophole,” he continued, his hand tracing the line of her waist to her hip. “Together.”

She pursed her lips, trying to figure out whether this was a hill she wanted to die on. Klaus had a lot of experience with magic at this point, probably knew better than anyone where to start to find possible avenues for exploration, and he wasn’t exactly a quitter. If he wanted to find a way he would. Worst-case scenario, he’d incentivize someone to invent a workaround.

“Okay,” she said after a few seconds.

She was rewarded with a boyish dimpled grin, his warm palms settling on the skin of her waist under the sheets to pull her closer. She let him, burying her face in his shoulder. After her first shower in a thousand years (totally gross to think about, but the best feeling when she finally gotten to do it), they’d been in bed for almost an entire day, Klaus insisting she needed rest. 

His hands had been getting more distracting through the afternoon though. He’d been absently stroking her skin or tracing her ribcage, making her nipples pebble against her pajama top. She squirmed as they made their way under the hem of her top to brush the undercurve of her breast, breathing in sharply at the touch. “That feels good,” she breathed, twisting to give him better access and pulling off her top, trying not to blush at his chuckle as he bent forward to run his tongue along her neck, coaxing out a soft, breathless moan.

“Niklaus...”

“I’ve waited for this for so long,” he whispered against her skin. “God, Caroline... Do you know how long I’ve thought about what you’d feel like around me?”

“About a thousand years?” she teased, wriggling out of her cotton shorts and kicking them away. “Tell me what you thought about.”

“I had many, as I’m sure you’d guess,” he said, gently pressing against her hip to get her to lie back against the pillows and rolling on top of her, speaking between soft kisses to her jaw. “I thought of you like this often, the way you’d look spread across my sheets with your legs spread wide...”

She moaned as he slipped a hand between her thighs to toy with her clit, her hands curling against the sheets as he watched her raptly, noting every shift in her expression. She squirmed as he moved his fingers to slip inside of her, his nails curling against her walls. Her lips parted in a breathless moan, her eyes closing tightly as she rolled her hips, trying to find a rhythm against the movements of his hand. “Look at me, love.”

She opened her eyes as he asked, and the way he was looking at her nearly made her come around his fingers right then, the heat and desire in his eyes making her heart pound in her chest.

“Like that?” he asked, his lips curled into a smirk, and she nodded. She wanted to see him as affected by her as she was by him, craved to see the way his face looked when she wrapped her fingers around his cock. 

He groaned when she slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his boxerbriefs, and he sat up tugging them down his hips to free his cock. “You’re so beautiful, sweetheart,” he whispered almost reverently, bending down to capture her lips in a deep kiss as he positioned himself at her entrance.

She spread her legs in invitation, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her fingers in his hair to keep him close, needing to feel him against her in every way possible. The feel of him filling her was almost definitely the best thing she’d ever felt, and she lifted her hips to try to get a better angle. “More,” she rasped, pressing her forehead against his shoulder as he began to move, fucking her with long, slow strokes.

She’d missed him intensely and she’d barely been conscious for the time they’d been apart, her glass prison making days bleed into years and centuries too easily, but he’d been alone for every single day of their time apart, and she knew that it was silly, but she needed reassurance that even after all that distance he still loved her as much as he always had.

“I’ve thought about you every day,” he murmured, almost as though he’d read her mind. “Every single day.”

His forehead fell against hers, their breath mingling between long drugging kisses as he fucked her slowly, his nails digging into her hips to steady her. 

He’d spun fantasy after fantasy when she was trapped in the stone and all he could do was ask her to show him how she liked it. He’d narrate endless scenarios, his voice thick with lust as his eyes were glued to her fingers working between her thighs or against her breasts. None of them were close to as good as feeling his skin against hers. She wasn’t sure how she’d ever lived without it, and she was positive that she’d never be able to get enough of him now.

Her high built slowly, his fingers and cock working to draw it out, but when she finally tipped over the edge with his name on her lips, she was shaking underneath him, her nails digging bloody scrapes into his back.

He didn’t seem to mind, coming just a few moments later and growing comfortably heavy on top of her..

“I love you, sweetheart,” he whispered, already brushing her hair from her face just to drink her in, how she looked flushed and sated.

“Love you too.”

“I’m never letting you go again,” he said, the words hovering somewhere between a warning and a vow.

“Good.”


End file.
